The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-07-11
THE PRESIDENTS LETTER.

letter of politician bidding for popularity,
it can be taken for granted that Mr.. Cleveland
will use the presidential office to secure his
denomination and reelection for all there is
in it. His letter may. therefore, be consid-
cred a campaign document As to the pro-
priety of his declining the invitation we say
nothing. That was largely matter of per-
sonal feeling of which he was the best judge.
The Presidents private feelings are his private
property. The letter which he has given to
the public must be judged for what it evil
IDENTIFY is-a politicians bid for popular sup
| port. 1t shows careful preparation, and was
probably written by the President himself.
1t has the numbering heavy style that charac-
terizes all his utterances, and the stolid imper-
| durability and self-satisfied egotism that
| characterize the man. Whatever others may
think of Mr.. Cleveland he will always approve
| himself and if the whole world should unite
in coniemning any act of his he would only
| conclude that the whole world was wrong.
| The facts in the st. Louis case are these:
1
their last national encampment to hold their
next one at st. Louis, from the 9th to the
| 30th of September. In February last joint
committee. representing tine city government
| Of st. Louis and the G. A. r., sent the Presi-
dent letter inviting him TO visit the city
during the encampment. This was supple
| mented by another invitation from the citi-
zens, very numerously signed and deliberately
mounted, urging the President to attend. He
finally accepted the invitation. The publica-
ton of the fact was accompanied by the
announcement that he would go on the invi-
tation of the Grand Army of the Republic,
and would review the veterans. This was
soon followed by objections and protests, first
from members of the Grand Army, who
thought they discovered a purpose to turn the
affair into political demonstration, and,
second, from those who condemned the Presi-
dents vetoes of soldiers pension bills. Both
of these classes protested against his being
invited to attend the encampment. The
former did not wish to assist in booming Mr.
Cleveland for second term, and the latter
did not wish to have anything to do with him.
The protests increased in volume and violence
until it came to be feared that if the Presi
dent should go to st. Louis during the
encampment, something unpleasant would
happen. His final declination of the invita-
ton settles this aspect of the case
The President tries to put himself wholly
in the right and his opponents and critics
wholly in the wrong. Perhaps this is human
nature; it is certainly Cleveland nature. He
tries to make trouble in the Grand Army of
the Republic by drawing distinction between
the organization as a whole and some of its
branches and members. He fatters the
organization as a whole, and assumes that it
approves his acts. while he comes as near as
The former is composed very largely of men
entitled to lasting honor and consideration"
while Mr.. Clevelands critics misguided,
unbalanced men," The Presidents attempt
to identify Grover Cleveland with the presi-
Dental office, and to glorify his personal char
acter by surrounding it with halo of official
dignity, is cunning and characteristic. He
says the opposition to his visiting st. Louis
during the encampment els based, as we'll as
/ can Judge, upon certain official acts of mine
under the restraints and obligations Of my
oath of Office, which do not appear to accord
with the wishes of some members of the
Grand Army Of the Republic" If Mr. Cleve-
land had more intelligence and less egotism |
he would know that the trouble in his |
case is not so much what he did as the |
way he did it--not so much his vetoing |
Of soldiers pension bills as that he |
did it in a spirit of ghoulish glee. |
If his veto messages had been conceived in |
and written in style BETTING his high posi-
ton, there would probably be no occasion now
to deprecate the wrath of the old soldiers by |
invoking the dignity of the presidential |
Office 1t was the prostitution of the dignity |
of his Office that angered them, and his resort
to ribald wit to make his messages needlessly |
offensive. In the light of recent events they |
cannot understand how President who was
blind to the law forbidding the return of cap
tured rebel flags could have discovered such
insurmountable obstacles to a measure which
proposed to pension disabled soldiers. Such
acts as these do not inhere in the office of
President; they are the personal acts and
plumbers of the man who temporarily holds it.
The time has not come when a President of
the United States can say with of the
French kings, II am the state" The office
is one thing, the man who holds it another,
and true patriotism requires that for many
purposes they should be disassociated in the
public. mind. The temporary occupant of
the presidential Office assumes that because